


in the long run

by Airheart



Category: Transformers (Bay Movies)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-21
Updated: 2017-06-21
Packaged: 2018-11-03 10:44:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10965621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Airheart/pseuds/Airheart
Summary: Mikaela has an unexpected visitor.





	in the long run

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Eternal Scribe (Shadowcat)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadowcat/gifts).



> set shortly before age of extinction. hope you like it!

The sound of an engine woke Mikaela in the middle of the night, and she reached automatically for the pistol on her bedside table.

She had picked her house for several reasons—chiefly, its location. It sat on an acre of property two miles away from the main road, and her closest neighbor was another half-mile away. Sacramento was an hour’s drive north, and there was a small town about 30 minutes from her house where she could do all her shopping. Besides work, though, she spent most of her time at home. She had had quite enough excitement and adventure packed into the (almost) six years between getting in that car with Sam, and NEST being shut down some months after the devastation of Chicago—she valued her privacy now, and the comparatively boring life she had come to lead. The quiet seclusion of her little house made her feel safe.

But she rarely had visitors. In fact, in the three years that she had been living in that house, only a handful of people had ever come to see her—family, Lennox and Maggie, and some men in a black SUV who claimed to be a part of something called Cemetery Wind. They had questioned her about the Autobots, who she hadn’t seen since NEST’s termination, and the head goon had given her his personal card, “in case you remember anything, or just want to talk.” She’d thrown the card away as soon as she closed the door. Lennox hadn’t told her where the Autobots were going, and even if she did know, she would never tell Cemetery Wind.

If she had learned anything all these years, though, it was that when government agents want something, they never give up.

Mikaela got out of bed quickly and quietly, yanking on a pair of jeans and her cowboy boots before creeping over to the window and peering out. She couldn’t make out any details behind the glare of the vehicle’s headlights, but she recognized the rumble of a truck’s diesel engine, and a powerful one at that. A moment later, the headlights shut off and the engine went silent.

Half a minute passed, then two minutes, then three, and no one was getting out of the truck. Mikaela furrowed her brow. Government agents weren’t the type to just sit back and wait. Even if they didn’t have a warrant, they liked to be at your front door, in your business, in your face. For a second, she considered the possibility of an ambush, then pushed that thought away. There was no reason for anyone to target her, and in any case, they wouldn’t drive right up to her house like that.

 _Lennox?_ she thought, and shook her head at that, too. He would have come to the door already.  _Not government, not NEST…_

Mikaela straightened up. She could make out the outline of the truck, now—a long-nose semi, minus its trailer.

“He wouldn’t be that stupid,” she muttered, but never before in her life had she been so relieved to see a vehicle transform.

She all but ran outside, stepping onto the front porch just as Optimus completed his transformation. He knelt, staying below the tops of the trees that blocked the view of the house from the road. His optics shone bright in the darkness, enough that Mikaela could see his face, although she could hardly believe it.

“You,” she said breathlessly, “what…? What are you doing?”

“I need your help once again, Mikaela,” said Optimus. It was then that she noticed how he was holding his right side.

“You’re hurt,” she said. “God, what have you—go around back. I’ll be there in a second.”

Optimus nodded and stood, moving carefully towards the backyard while trying to stay lower than the treetops, and Mikaela was reminded strongly of that first night they’d met. Her heart unexpectedly hurt.

She went back into the house to put on her painting coveralls. Energon stained even worse than oil, and she suspected that Optimus was leaking copious amounts of both. Then she dragged the box of binders out of her closet and went to the backyard.

Optimus was waiting for her, kneeling by the garage.

“I’m sorry to disturb you at this time of night,” he said, as she opened the garage door and turned on the lights inside.

“It’s fine,” she said. “What’s broken?”

Optimus showed her the gash in his side, and the bundle of slashed hoses underneath. One was a fuel line, leaking gasoline into the wound, and the others ran Energon. It wasn’t immediately life-threatening, but it would turn fatal if Mikaela didn’t do something about it.

She opened the box of binders and skimmed through each of them until she found the section on the Cybertronian circulation system. There were holes in some of the pages where Energon had eaten through the paper—Ratchet had always taken a very practical approach to teaching, and Mikaela often had to write while her hands were still dirty from the procedure, while the information was fresh in her mind. Cybertronian anatomy and physiology had been one of her first lessons, and her most intense, right after the battle in Egypt, when Ratchet was collecting the pieces of Elita-One to try and put her back together. He hadn’t succeeded, and one of the anatomy pages in Mikaela’s binder from that day was spotted with tear stains.

“The fuel line can be fixed, but I can’t get one until the store opens tomorrow,” she said to Optimus, forcing the memory out of her mind. “I’ll do some spot welding on the Energon lines to keep them together while they heal, smooth out the rough edges of the wound—it’s not ideal, but…“ Mikaela trailed off, looking around the garage at her tools.

“Do what you can,” Optimus said. Mikaela dragged a ladder out of the garage, set it up by Optimus’s side, and set to gathering her tools.

Part of her brain was on autopilot, going over what she could remember of Optimus’s schematics and formulating a repair plan that would work with what she had on hand. Ratchet had always told her to clear her mind and focus on the work, only the work, and nothing else until the job was finished. It was easier said than done, but it was still well ingrained after six years of working in his medical bay.

Still, there were questions running around in her head. She hoped that Optimus would answer them without her having to ask—he was usually very good at spouting information or advice when you needed it, even if you didn’t say anything—but he only sat there, staring out into the night as his side bled fuel and Energon. Up close now, Mikaela could see that his armor was dented and scratched and filthy, like he’d been on the road for weeks.

“Where have you been?” she asked.

“I don’t remember,” Optimus said slowly. “It all became a blur, some time ago.” Mikaela furrowed her brow.

“What have you been  _doing_?”

“Running.”

“From what?”

This time, Optimus looked at her. “From your government _._ ”

Mikaela stopped what she was doing, and stared at Optimus. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“In the wake of NEST’s termination, a new unit was created,” Optimus said. “They are supposed to neutralize the Decepticon threats left on Earth.”

“Cemetery Wind,” Mikaela said, frowning.

Optimus’s expression grew sour. “They do not discriminate between Autobot and Decepticon. To them, we are all the same.”

“What are you saying? Are they hunting you, too?”

“They are hunting all of us.” Optimus gestured to the gash in his side. “And they have help, from my own kind.”

“Not one of the bots,” Mikaela said. She racked her brain for any Autobot who seemed inclined to betray their family, bar Sentinel Prime. Wheelie? No, he was too smitten with Mikaela to do her any wrong again.

“No,” said Optimus, “he is neutrally aligned. A bounty hunter.”

A sudden, frightening thought struck Mikaela.

“Is that who hurt you? Did he follow you here?” she asked. To her relief, Optimus shook his head.

“He commands a number of Steeljaws. Wolves,” he added, before Mikaela could ask. “Small, but deadly adversaries. I was attacked by one this morning.”

Mikaela climbed the ladder and leaned on the top rung, reaching out to wipe Optimus’s wound clean before clamping the fuel line off. “Well, if it had cut any deeper, you might not have made it this long.” Then she paused. “How did you know where to find me?”

“Arcee told me, before we parted ways. We know where most of our human allies are living now, at least those who have not moved in the last two years.”

“So all the Autobots know where I am?”

“They are under strict orders not to make contact with you, or anyone else,” said Optimus. “For their safety, as much as yours. You have already been approached by Cemetery Wind, haven’t you?” It was more of a statement than a question, and Mikaela nodded.

“I knew there was something off about them.  _And_ I didn’t appreciate the way the way they talked down to me. I don’t like to be that person who says ‘Don’t you know who I am?’ but…” She put her hands on her hips. “Don’t they  _know_ who I  _am_?”

Optimus vented a gust of hot air, the closest thing to a laugh that most people could get out of him. Mikaela couldn’t help smiling. She patted his side, and climbed down from the ladder.

"How are the others?" she asked, as she searched for her spot welder in the garage.

"I don't know," said Optimus at length. "We were forced to separate, not long after NEST was dissolved. I have not had contact with anyone in..." He paused, thinking. "Over a year."

"You don't have any idea where they are?"

"I only know that most of us are scattered throughout the Americas, hiding."

Mikaela pursed her lips. "It's not right. They're treating you like criminals when all you've done is help us. All this time, you've put us before your own kind." She thought about Cybertron, destroyed for Earth's sake, and she thought of all the friends the Autobots had lost in those fights, and her grip tightened almost painfully on the spot welder. Then she forced herself to relax. "I’m sorry, Optimus.”

Optimus said nothing, and Mikaela let it be. She understood, but at the same time, she could never understand what he had been through.

The spot welding job did not take long, and Mikaela wrapped the lines with electrical tape as a precaution. Energon would probably eat through the tape in a matter of hours, maybe a day, but it was better than nothing. As long as the lines were together, Optimus's systems would take care of the rest. He was a fast healer—Ratchet attributed it to his Prime lineage. Mikaela just hoped that he would be able to stay out of trouble long enough to actually heal.

She put away her tools, wiped her hands on her coveralls, then sat down on the last rung of the ladder and looked up at Optimus.

"You can stay here for the night," she said. "Longer, if you want. In the morning I'll replace the fuel line and see if I can bang out some of those dents."

"It is dangerous for us to be in contact," said Optimus. "The longer I am here, the greater the chance of my capture becomes. And if Cemetery Wind suspects that you have been in contact with me, they may become hostile."

Mikaela pursed her lips. "It's still my job to take care of you guys, with or without NEST," she said.

Optimus didn't respond to that, but he didn't move, either. They sat there for a while without speaking—there wasn't much to say, anyway. Something had changed between them. Something was different about Optimus, something sad that Mikaela couldn't quite put her finger on.

Finally, unable to stand the silence anymore, she stood up.

"You can trust me, Optimus," she said. "I want to help you. I owe you my life."

Optimus just looked at her. She sighed, and turned off the garage lights. "I'll see you in the morning."  _I hope._

* * *

 

Optimus sat by the garage for several more hours after Mikaela went back to the house, motionless. Then he transformed, ignoring the throbbing pain in his side, and drove away, away from the house and away from the last human he still cared about. He wished to protect her, and the best way for him to that was to stay away from her.

So he pointed himself towards Mexico, and drove hard.

**Author's Note:**

>  _People, they tell me I should be careful  
>  That you worry and I'm already miles away  
> But I know I'll see you again in the long run  
> And I know I'll meet you again in the long run_  
> \--["In The Long Run"](https://youtu.be/cQXNUGMERQM?t=33) by The Staves


End file.
